Chavis: ‘We’ve done everything they’ve asked’

EAST LAURINBURG — The state has claimed that East Laurinburg is “no longer viable” as a town, but at least one town commissioner is fighting back.

After not filing an audit to the state for four years, in late 2020 State Treasurer Dale Folwell and the State Local Government Commission Finance Division gave East Laurinburg officials several weeks to begin the process of getting its audits started.

On April 13, the NCLGC and Folwell’s office filed a resolution with the General Assembly that called for East Laurinburg’s charter to be repealed. But Mayor Pro Tem Gail Chavis plans on fighting against the state for the chance to keep the charter, saying that the commissioners weren’t aware of what was going on until they were contacted last year.

“I came into office in 2018 and when I came into office that’s when we found out that the 2016 audit had been done but it had not been paid for,” Chavis said. “So we had our financial officer in there, she was in there for two and a half months when I first came in, then we hired another financial officer. So that’s when she found out about the audit from Mr. Carl Head — we paid him for 2016 and so he had everything for 2017 and held it. He never did the audit for us or anything, he had all the information to do it but never did it.

“Mr. Carl Head never told us that we have to do them every year or when they’re due,” she added. “He never told us anything.”

Head believes the entire thing has just been a misunderstanding. There was a contract done to audit the town in 2016, but the firm got it late and since it was being paid in installments the firm couldn’t have moved forward with what was given for 2017. Head added that the little information that was given to the firm for 2017 would have been un-auditable even if there had been a contract because it was a mess.

“I think there’s just been a huge misunderstanding by the mayor pro tem about what an auditor’s responsibilities are,” Head said. “It’s their responsibility to understand their judicial duties and know the dates of when items are due.”

The town commissioners had a virtual meeting Dec. 16 with Folwell, Sharon Edmundson, Anne Culter, David Irwin, Rep. Garland Pierce, Sen. Tom McInnis, plus the financial officer and town clerk for East Laurinburg. During the meeting, the commissioners were told that they had to get the audits begun in order to keep their charter.

“They told us they were willing to work with us for us to get these audits done,” Chavis said. “I go by trust and by Mr. Carl Head not giving us any information on what we needed to do as far as trying to get these audits done, I didn’t trust him == so I said we needed to find another CPA to do these audits for us. They told me by doing that they would give us to the first of February to find an auditor and someone to get our audits together, so we agreed.

“I called Ms. Edmunson the fourth of January to report that I had gotten somebody, I got Mr. Ken Anderson out of Rockingham,” Chavis continued. “It would probably be the middle of February before they could even start. He said he would get with Ms. Sharon Edmunson in Raleigh to let her know that. Well, when he called her, she told him to hold off on doing anything witrh our audits or anything for us.”

The state, however, says the town didn’t have its bookkeeping in order enough to file an audit at all.

“A member of my staff has been reconciling the bank accounts,” Edmunson said. “You can’t just hand the records to the auditor anymore for an audit, they have to be in some sort of organized accounting system where the auditor is simply doing the audit and not doing the bookkeeping as well. The town has not done that and can’t really afford to hire someone to do that. They have some unrestricted funds, but not enough to cover the funds of bookkeeping and audit.”

Folwell added the LGC staff isn’t set up to be reconciling the bank accounts for the town, but are doing it anyway over concerns of who the town owes and who owes the town.

“They were unwilling to take the steps necessary to get their books in order,” Folwell said. “Until you get your books in order you can’t do an audit and until you can do an audit you can’t figure out what’s been going on there.”

Folwell continued by saying that the entire LGC board voted to pass the resolution to revoke the town’s charter.

“We have done our job and passed a resolution unanimously, which was made up of the entire Local Government Commission,” Folwell said. “We’ve passed this resolution telling the General Assembly that we’ve done our job and are asking for the General Assembly to do theirs.”

If the charter is revoked from East Laurinburg, it would become unincorporated, like Laurel Hill, and would not be annexed into the city of Laurinburg.

“At the end of the day, there are people in East Laurinburg who are fixed-income and lower-income individuals and this is going to reduce their cost of living,” Folwell said. “The community spirit of East Laurinburg is never going to go away. It’s just the tax burden on that community who are not receiving any essential services, where there is no reconciliation of the books, and there’s no audit, that’s what’s going to go away.”

Chavis, however, plans to continue fighting to retain the charter for the town.

“I for one plan to try and fight this as much as I possibly can because it’s not fair for us to be punished for something that happened and started before us,” Chavis said. “The reason for fighting is because it’s home. Secondly, I’m beginning to take it personally because they’re sitting there and saying they haven’t heard from us or we’re not doing anything. We’ve done everything they’ve asked.”

Reach Katelin Gandee at [email protected].